A Boat
Port Erin, Isle of Man.—At 7.10 on the morning of the 26th of April, 1957, the life-boat coxswain was told that a small boat was missing from the harbour.
There were marks in the sand indicat- ing that she had been dragged down the beach during the night. At 7.25 the life-boat Matthew Simpson was launched in a moderate sea. There was a fresh north-easterly breeze blowing and the tide was flooding.
The life-boat searched towards the Calf Sound while the man who had given the alarm made a search north- wards in his own motor vessel. The missing boat was found after twenty minutes by the life-boat two miles west of Port Erin. The man on board was rowing her stern first and was in an exhausted condition. He had lost one pair of oars and was in danger of being carried into the sound, where the boat would almost certainly have capsized in the freshening wind. He was taken on board the life-boat, which took the rowing boat in tow. A message was sent by radio-telephone asking for a doctor to come to the pier. After landing the man at the pier the life- boat reached her station again at 8.5.— Rewards to the crew, £7; rewards to the helpers on shore, £4 4s..